If not for the extensive reading I did in the past few years about the WWI was poets and their close relationship with each other, sometime bordering and merging into love, I would have probably considered this as only a good piece of fiction. But I do know about Siegfried Sassoon, and his love for Wilfred Owen, tragically ended with Owen’s death in 1918; his close relationship with Robert Graves, maybe more friendship then love; and his second attempt at happiness Stephen Tennant, that maybe pushed him to marry Hester Gatty and finally having a family, like he had always desired.

I can see the Paul of The Boy I love in Siegfried Sassoon, like probably I can see Adam in Robert Graves, and why not Patrick in Wilfred Owen (with a different ending); there is also Margot in Hester Gatty. Of course the inter-relationships are different, like different are their outcomes. And truth be told, I don’t like so much Paul, there is who sees courage in his decisions, but the only thing I can see is the broken hearts he is leaving behind. Already from the beginning, when he is describing the intense desire he has to be with Adam, and his desire is genuine, I can see that he is already detaching himself from his real life, to build a fake one. On this regard, Patrick is maybe less refined than Paul, but he is more sincere and open in his approaches.

It’s true that all these men, even Adam, were completely and tragically changed by the war, and it’s also true that many of them didn’t have a choice; it was probably easier for the Stephen Tennant of the time, people from aristocracy, being dubbed as “eccentric”, and living as they liked, but for the many Pauls, Adams and Patricks it was not so simple.

Just recently I argued with another reader on what makes a romance; the other opinion was that to be a romance you need to have an uplifting happily ever after; my opinion is that you need to have a love story, and the happily ever after is a bonus, but not a rule. So yes, I consider The Boy I Love a wonderful romance, maybe even comparable to the likes of Maurice, but unlike Maurice, it has not an happily ever after, at least not for Paul. I’m not sure if the author is planning something different for Adam and Patrick, maybe at the time she wrote this novel, she wanted for the reader to build their own finale. Now there are two more books in the series, so it will be interesting to see what is waiting for these men.

I wanted for this novel to have an happily ever after, even if I don’t like so much Paul (but more for the output of his decisions that for him as a character), I was enthralled by his story, as I was by Patrick and Adam (Adam is probably my favorite), but I knew it was not in the star; in a way, it could have been worst, in the end, Paul and Patrick are back from war (and many didn’t make it), Adam is still alive, but what life is without the total happiness of being able to basking to the sun of your love? It’s like living in a perennial shadow, it’s not bad, but not even perfection.

I foudn this a really unusual read - Husband's style is quite different to most of the writers I admire but none the worse for that - she writes with a light touch that on reflection hides some thought-provoking stuff as I found myself thinking about this novel and its characters long after I'd finished reading it. But then it was reccommended to me by a gay friend (the main plot line is a gay love story and touches on many of the difficutlies homosexual men faced before it became legal). He loved it, as did his book group. But it's well worth a read no matter if you're gay or straight as it gives such insight into the lives of young soldiers returning home from the 1914-18 war. ( )

The Boy I Love is just a fantastic, readable, totally absorbing novel that has haunted me since reading it. The main character, Paul Harris is beautifully realised and believable that it's impossible not to feel for him, despite the fact that he often does the wrong thing for the right reasons. In fact all the characters in this novel are fully rounded and I was captivated by them all. Husband writes in a really straight-forward, fluent style but still manages to instill a real feeling for atmosphere and suspense. A wonderful, thought-provoking novel. ( )

This is a fascinating story set amidst the first world war. At first it is a bit hard to get into - there are so many flashbacks it is hard to know just what is meant to be happening and who is who. Persevere through the first 50 pages and suddenly it turns into a real page turner. A good book, worth a read. ( )

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"A tangled web of love and betrayal develops when war hero Paul returns from the trenches. He finds himself torn between desire and duty, his lover Adam awaits but so too does Margot, the pregnant fiancee of his dead brother. Set in a time when homosexuality was the love that dare not speak its name, Paul has to decide where his loyalty and his heart lie."--BOOK JACKET.… (more)

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Marion Husband is a LibraryThing Author, an author who lists their personal library on LibraryThing.